Putting aside the quality of schools: how is this possible in the era of smartphones? I always thought that smartphones will put the final end to illiteracy, at least because of texting.
Also - genuine question for anyone with a clue - what percent of high school age kids do you think have smartphones in, say, East Oakland?
Answer: Effectively all of them. Source: worked in inner city schools for a bit in areas at least as poor as East Oakland.
I know of almost nobody else who does this. Shorthand is encouraged, acronyms abound, nobody actually gives a shit if you misspell something, punctuation is thrown to the wind with reckless abandon.
I don't see how texting could put an end to illiteracy. If anything, it promotes it.
Literacy attained.
Agreed that reading and writing are two different skills.
Of course, the question is whether that language is as expressive as ‘old English’.
I would guess it is simpler, but on the other hand, I know almost nothing of that language, and I know for sure it has features I can’t read, such as most expressions made up of multiple emoticons
Slightly provocative question, given what you've said ("without abbreviating anything"), would you actually spell out the acronym RSVP in a formal invitation? It's very common eg in Britain, it's definitely considered good form, and spelling it out would just cause confusion since it's actually a French term that most people probably wouldn't recognize (répondez, s'il vous plaît). What about i.e. (ita est)? E.g. (exemplum gratum, although some might argue it can also stand for example given)? You might say you just avoid those terms, which is possible, but I have a suspicion that you're just fooling yourself. Since you're on this site, I might also ask whether you always spell out the Domain Name System (DNS) and similar terms? If you did, you'd actually make your messages less understandable to most audiences, detracting from your literacy I'd argue.
[0] My opinion here, I'm not a linguist, so if this clashes with established definitions of literacy, my apologies.
Edit: I actually had a look, and of course you are fooling yourself. According to your comment history, you actually use abbreviations all the time, including ones that are unknown to me (ITAD company, SEE), making whatever point you were trying to make lost on me without research effort: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35273712#35276691
Edit: You took my comment too literally and missed the overall point. I didn't even intend to judge those who don't text like I do, hence my highlighting that it's not a conscious effort on my part. And, yes, I suppose that quite common acronyms are fine - I had hoped that it was obvious that I was referring to less common acronyms, but perhaps failed there (and still may be with this comment, c'est la vie). But thanks for kinda painting me like a grammar snob?
Edit 2: Some other words for clarification, since I guess I'd better be extra careful...
Just a guess, people used to be able to get by with a very basic level of literacy, i.e. label recognition. My cousin was this way when he finished school ~20 years ago.
Now you can't get by like that very easily because text based communication is so prevalent. If you have friends they'll be texting you, so you're pretty much forced into a learning situation for sociality, whereas in the past that was only happening at the speech level.
Re the shorthand stuff, (a) you probably just didn't realise how illiterate people were in the past because they couldn't write anything for you to read, so it's a genuine step up. (b) I actually encounter that shorthand less now, and more from adults who grew up with expensive and limited SMS.
The nuance is that most can read, but not "at their age level"
Quote:
> In 2021, 47% of Black students in SFUSD that are high school juniors don’t even come close to meeting English-language proficiency. [...] That means for every one of two Black students leaving San Francisco high schools they can’t read for their age.
I wonder what percentage are learning English as a 2nd language.
The problem I see with using "black" as a descriptor is there are recent African immigrants, 1+ gen. African immigrants, Afro latinos, descendants of enslaved Americans, etc... put under one umbrella.
How can anyone pinpoint why a % of "black" students have reading issues at similar rates to hispanic students when the statistics pool black people from vastly different backgrounds together?
I have no idea how things stack in the Bay Area, but I figure that answers your question and implies your nuance likely wouldn't change anything.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/04/09/a-risin...
Yes, when I saw that it was clear to me that being "foreign born" said very little about the population. For example, English can still be a 2nd or 3rd language for recent immigrants with US born children, especially in California and Texas.
>I figure that answers your question and implies your nuance likely wouldn't change anything.
I disagree, immigrants are most likely unevenly distributed.
That said, you could probably hunt for some school-level stats in the bay area and make an educated guess.
I misread, thanks for clarifying.
(Anecdotally, almost everyone I know who texts like this is very well educated and absolutely capable of writing in full, grammatical sentences — they just choose not to in these situations.)
Plus, texting has always featured slang, abbreviations, lack of punctuation, shortened spelling, etc. Not the best to learn from, perhaps.
If the only reading is app button labels, slang tweet burns, or media approved slogans of the week, why would you expect them to develop any meaningful vocabulary?
communicate through emoji and stickers?